I am thinking about buying a DP3 for landscape photography, but I am a little bit concerned about the color accuracy produced by the Foveon sensor. I use a Pentax 645D, so I have high expectations in this regard. How do autumn colors look with this camera?

Jan

I'd stick with the Pentax 645D!!!Of course if you want portability, the Merrills are good. You might also want to look at the SD1m with the new 18-35mm F1.8 lens. Probably a more versatile arrangement and that lens has some of the best write ups for a zoom I have seen (and an unheard of constant F1.8 aperture!). Combine that with the new 50mm F1.4 Art lens coming out next year and you have a killer combo with the same "Foveon look". Just a thought...

That sounds like an interesting option. But I would like to reduce the weight even more, so the Merrill, combined with a Sony RX1R and/or a Ricoh GR is probably going to be my travel gear. The whole 645D setup with 3 lenses, big tripod and all accessories is really nice but weights more than 10kg.

That sounds like an interesting option. But I would like to reduce the weight even more, so the Merrill, combined with a Sony RX1R and/or a Ricoh GR is probably going to be my travel gear. The whole 645D setup with 3 lenses, big tripod and all accessories is really nice but weights more than 10kg.

Well, then let's make a deal. You get my DP3M + RX1R and I will only take your 645D setup...

I have another question about the Merrills. If I buy a Merrill in Japan, can I switch the menu to English or is it Japanese only?

According to the official japanese website, the japanese version of the DP3 features the same languages as anywhere else.See for yourself, important parts in blue:表示言語: 日本語/英語/ドイツ語/フランス語/スペイン語/イタリア語/中国語(簡体字)/中国語(繁体字)/韓国語/ロシア語/オランダ語/ポーランド語/ポルトガル語/デンマーク語/スウェーデン語/ノルウェー語/フィンランド語

Yes, manually set. At any given aperture and distance-to-subject, a little practice makes it fairly easy & repeatable. Even easier for landscape distances and takes fewer frames at optimum aperture (for sharpness) for good front to back depth. I use a Hoodman loupe sometimes when I need to see my points more precisely. For this image, a couple of practice runs got me dialed in. I hate fly-by-wire manual focus in general, but the the sound produced by the Sigma's focusing actually helps me be more precise - go figure!

I think you'll easily get the feel for it. I'd reccomend testing at home for landscape distances at you preferred aperture. Being able to check stack quality immediately will go a long way toward getting a routine that will be dependable in the field.

Let me add that the Foveon sensor is very sensitive to under exposure. So when your rental arrives make your first tests be to dial in an appropriate ex-comp setting. E.g. w/ my DP2 I start at +.7, and w/ the DP3 it is +.3. Under exposure will produce an inordinate increase in shadow noise, and when severe, ugly and uncorrectable banding. These cameras have stunning image quality, but within very limited parameters. I truly love mine and would probably give up my other gear before I did the Merrills. Addictive.

Rand

So I had a rented DP2M to use last weekend, and a Canon 6D. I like the 6D (and may still buy one at some point), but I ordered a DP2 immediately. The sharpness is hardly to be believed, and the tonal smoothness compared to my other digital gear reminds me of the difference between 35mm and 6X7 MF film.

Actually, working with the DP2 reminds me a bit of using MF and 4X5 film cameras in another way: You have to be extra attentive to exposure and composition. The Foveon highlight clipping can be very sharp, and the 6D seemed to have quite a bit more dynamic range than the Sigma. But, when you get exposure taken care of properly, the resulting file is a thing of beauty.

People complain about Foveon color balance, but I find it no more difficult to handle in raw conversion than any other sensor, other than the fact that SPP itself is so slow and cumbersome. As soon as Adobe begins supporting the Merrill raw files, that problem will go away.

So now I have to decide which DPX to get next. I really see a DP3M as inevitable, and probably a DP1M as well. Would most of you suggest the DP3M next, or the DP1M, for typical landscape use?

So I had a rented DP2M to use last weekend, and a Canon 6D. I like the 6D (and may still buy one at some point), but I ordered a DP2 immediately. The sharpness is hardly to be believed, and the tonal smoothness compared to my other digital gear reminds me of the difference between 35mm and 6X7 MF film.

Actually, working with the DP2 reminds me a bit of using MF and 4X5 film cameras in another way: You have to be extra attentive to exposure and composition. The Foveon highlight clipping can be very sharp, and the 6D seemed to have quite a bit more dynamic range than the Sigma. But, when you get exposure taken care of properly, the resulting file is a thing of beauty.

People complain about Foveon color balance, but I find it no more difficult to handle in raw conversion than any other sensor, other than the fact that SPP itself is so slow and cumbersome. As soon as Adobe begins supporting the Merrill raw files, that problem will go away.

So now I have to decide which DPX to get next. I really see a DP3M as inevitable, and probably a DP1M as well. Would most of you suggest the DP3M next, or the DP1M, for typical landscape use?

No, when I look in the lens I see what looks like a shutter. The diaphragm must be behind it somewhere and that is where I have heard is the best pivot point for panos. [My battery hasn't charged yet so I can't open the shutter and looked.] Much of my attention has been absorbed looking for the second battery or information on whether Alexcious intended to ship one in the first place. Has anyone else shopped using Alexcious and Amazon? And how many batteries did you get?

I bought mine at B and H, and it came in a Sigma original box with two batteries, each wrapped in a small polyethylene clear bag. The Sigma box had a camera compartment and an "everything else" compartment, containing battery charger, two batteries, two or three individually bagged camera to USBetc cables, a shoulder strap, and the paperwork consisting of manual, warranty card, and some other single sheet of paper. When you order from Sigma direct, you get the same as above. Sigma KNOWS that the battery life is p*ss-poor and wisely supplies two batteries.

I will just determine the entrance pupil/ no-parallax point empirically, as I have done for other camera/lens combos. Yes, this is for panoramas. Google is my friend, here's Robert Tobler's empirically determined NPP:

"I determined the so called entrance pupil (i.e. the no-parallax point, incorrectly often called nodal point) of my Sigma DPx Merrill cameras for the hyper-focal setting at f/11. The entrance pupil of the DPx Merrills is different for different focus settings since the front lens of the cameras moves back and forth when focussing. I found the following values for the distance of the entrance pupil to the center of the tripod mounts:

DP1M: 38mm DP2M: 32.5mm DP3M: 37mm

The hyper-focal setting at f/11 of the DP1M and DP2M was computed for a very small circle of confusion (0.008mm, slightly more than the size of the diagonal of a pixel), in order to retain most of the sharpness of these cameras. On my camera an easy way to set these two cameras to this hyper-focal setting is to put the camera into manual focussing mode, and move the focus mark beneath the center of the left loop of the infinity sign.

The hyper-focal setting of the DP3M is even further towards infinity, but the movements of the front lens so close to infinity are very small, so the above entrance pupil figure works.

For near-field panoramas, larger offsets need to be used, as the front lens moves forward for smaller focus distances. (This is especially true for the DP3M!)"

P.S. For those who like making a preliminary composition through a viewfinder (and incidentally saving on battery charge) before the final adjustment on LCD, Voigtlander makes a 75mm (for full frame, = 50mm DP3M) viewfinder that fits in the shoe. I bought mine used off eBay, but the Voigtlander specialist shops and B and H have this new still - its manufacture has been discontinued. It comes in silver and black versions. It is a nice small bright viewfinder.

Yes, what you see looking into the lens is the leaf shutter. You can have a fake shutter sound or turn the sound off for truly silent operation.